


Take Me Where I've Never Been

by Zippit



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 15:22:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4671605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zippit/pseuds/Zippit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lt. Tony Stark joins the crew of the Enterprise and ends up slotting himself into Hikaru Sulu's life to a greater degree than Hikaru ever expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Me Where I've Never Been

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BrighteyedJill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrighteyedJill/gifts).



Sometimes Hikaru gets tired of being on a ship full of geniuses. Take now for example where he's listening to Kirk and the newest transfer, red shirt Lieutenant Tony Stark, argue about the specs for the latest upgrade to the interstellar navigation console . He's not sure why he's here in place of Scotty. Yeah, he's read up on the tech but Scotty's the one that agonizes over all the upgrades to his baby.

They’ve been in the depths of the Enterprise’s lower decks for the better part of an hour now. The hum of the various working pieces of machinery surround them and he’s still not sure why they couldn’t be having this conversation in a lab or somewhere less isolated. Hikaru rolls his neck from one side to the other, reaching up to rub the tension out of his shoulder.

He stopped paying attention fifteen minutes ago and started assigning names to the different pieces of metalwork around him. Off to the left there is Mr. Snowcone because it’s putting off a fine mist that looks cold enough to chill someone from an ice planet to the bone. Then just over the shoulder of Lt. Stark is Mt. Fiji, practically a pyramid of metal joints and glowing warning signs and arrows that lead to everywhere and nowhere. Behind Kirk is Snoopy, a small connected series of tubes that have the vague form of a large eared dog. And Hikaru’s sitting on Fortitude because it’s where he’s been since this discussion got away from him.

Parts of his ass are numb and the imprints of some of the joins and rivets may be making themselves known for the foreseeable future. Hikaru licks his lips, chasing the crumbs of the sandwich he’d had for lunch, and wishes he had the excuse of food to get him out of here. He tunes back into the conservation to find Kirk doing most of the talking right now.

Kirk might be dressed in command gold and come off like an arrogant ass but his grasp on anything that related to the Enterprise has surprised them all on more than one occasion. And Stark is the kind of guy who’s been busted down several ranks just because he pissed off the wrong people. Hikaru can tell from the way he argues with the captain, emphasizing his points and challenging anything that Kirk puts forward that he thinks is stupid.

He’s zoned out again. Kirk’s voice kinda does that to him. He could listen to it spout random stuff at him all day and he has when they were off duty. It’s soothing in the white noise way Jim Kirk has. But the rise in voices tells him they’re about to get wrapped up in another argument. With a roll of his eyes, Hikaru hops off Fortitude and steps closer until he can put a hand on Kirk’s shoulder and clears his throat. “Hey, guys, you going to sit and argue the rest of the day?”

Stark turns keen brown eyes on him and flashes him a smile that rivals Kirk’s for the wattage. “Actually, Sulu, we were just about to ask your opinion. You’re the one that’s going to be using this thing the most.” He waves a hand toward the navigation module where they’ve pulled up various screen displays with schematics and notions scribbled all over. Some are in Kirk’s hand while the majority are in Stark’s.

Hikaru steps past Kirk, closer to the screen, and frowns as he scans through the schematics and notations. The Enterprise wasn’t going to get anything but the best and this was exactly that. An additional vector mapping processor along with more fine tuned maneuverability commands for the ship itself. A ship the size of the Enterprise wasn’t going to be easy to maneuver from any position aboard ship and this would provide a more immersive control for the pilot. Each tweak proposed would increase the capabilities significantly.

He whistles low. “You’ve just made every pilot’s wet dream even better.” He turns back to look at them and smirks. “Get me a joystick and you’d make it perfect.”

Kirk’s already shaking his head though there’s a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth. “Not sure about that, Sulu. There’s only so much leeway.”

Stark actually looks contemplative and he rubs at his chin. “I…might be able to figure something out.”

Kirk looks at him in surprise then tilts his head speculatively. “Work something up and run it by me?”

Stark nods absently and he’s already off in his own world. Hikaru exchanges a look with Kirk. He shrugs and arches an eyebrow. Not all the transfers work out. Kirk’s style of captaining throws out all the rules. He demands the best from everyone around him and that’s not always a standard they can live up to.

Kirk slaps Stark on the shoulder with a grin. “I think you’ll fit in fine, Lt. Stark, if today was anything to go by.”

“Oh, I know. I’ve been looking forward to this transfer for weeks.” There’s a mischievous glint in the man’s eyes and Hikaru’s interest is piqued even more. Especially when Stark smiles with that grin that could light up a room and includes the both of them in it.

“Don’t stay down here too long. Oh, and introduce yourself to Scotty,” Kirk says as he half turns to go.

“Think I’ll stay down here a little longer and finalize some of the things we talked about.” He gives a two fingered salute, already focused on the display.

Kirk catches Hikaru’s eye and nods his head back toward the way they came. They don’t speak until they’re back in the turbolift and heading toward personnel quarters. They don’t stand too close but Hikaru’s looking forward to several hours to themselves. He gets a kick out of Jim’s brain when he lets it out play. “So Stark’s going to be interesting to have around.”

“Mmhm, you jealous?” Jim says with a sly smirk, head canted to give him a smoldering look.

He rolls his eyes and elbows him hard. “Why? He’s not the only one you talk technobabble at.”

Jim laughs as the doors open onto their floor and they make their way down the hall. Hikaru’s room is a few doors down from Jim’s but he doesn’t stop there. He follows Jim in and shoves him against the doors once they close.

~*~*~*~

“Hey, Hikaru. Can I call you Hikaru?” The voice appearing at his shoulder from nowhere makes him jump. He blinks as Lt. Stark comes into focus. He’s dressed in some punk rock t-shirt that’s a throw back to the 21st century from what he can see.

He raises an eyebrow and just looks at Stark. The guy presses on without missing a beat.

“I’m Tony, by the way. I’m not sure if we’ve been formally introduced.” He sticks his hand out and Hikaru can do nothing but shake his hand. “How’re you liking the new nav module?”

Hikaru serves on a ship crewed by geniuses. He’s never been slow on his feet but Stark makes him feel like he is, jumping from one topic to another like it’s nothing. His step falters. “It’s working out great so far. No hiccups.” He shrugs. “The adjustments you and Jim made have the Enterprise moving even better than the original specs said.”

Stark, Tony, tilts his head and a smirk plays around the corners of his mouth. There’s a light in his eyes that Hikaru doesn’t think comes from just talking about the nav module. He’s seen that look and this is completely different. It’s sly and, if he’s honest with himself, exactly how Jim looks when he’s figured out something and doesn’t want you to know. That’s different than how he looks when he’s scrambling to put together a plan in the middle of a crisis. They’ve all become far too familiar with that one.

“Good, good. I have some Synthenol to pick up from Scotty.” Tony squeezes his shoulder then slides away as quickly as he appeared. Hikaru stares after him. He thought he’d seen everything after Khan and alternate universe Spock.

~*~*~*~

The first away mission happens thirty-one days after they’ve finished retrofit. It ends with Hikaru and Stark crouched over Jim’s unconscious body, alternating phaser shots from around the sides of a giant crystalline boulder shaped house. He’s a better shot than Hikaru would’ve pegged him for. All that science talk and arrogance didn’t lend itself to the impression of a man who would handle himself well in action. A hole with rough hewn steps recedes down into the scrubby dirt the whole planet’s made of.

“This happen a lot?” Stark yells over the rapid pulse of phaser fire and indecipherable chittering of the many legged vine-like monsters edging closer to them. There’s a swath of dirt cleared of structures and even if it was filled with the deepest ravine, the vine monsters haven’t been stopped by anything.

“Unfortunately.” They both pause and look down when they hear a groan.

“Wha happen?” Jim slurs and he and Stark look at each other.

“The usual,” Hikaru quips then fires off several shots. Jim’s actually pushed himself up on an elbow when he looks at him again.

“Mean I’m still awesome.” He gives a lopsided grin that would make Hikaru’s pulse race if he wasn’t too busy trying to keep them alive. Hikaru rolls his eyes and tries to push Jim back down again.

“No, you’re still a pain in the ass that McCoy needs to patch up _again_.” Jim laughs then ends up coughing wetly. Hikaru’s heard far too much of that and he smacks his communicator again. “Sulu to Enterprise, come in Enterprise.”

Nothing but the hissing rattle of static. Never promising. 

“Don’t make me sit on you, Jim.” He doesn’t have time to see what’s going on. He sears a line of fire in front of them, cutting off the leading points of a massive amount of vines. The mass shrinks back in a rustle of wounded pain while the parts he cut off thrash and kick up dirt. He’s bought them time but they need Scotty to pull through and get their asses out of there.

He ducks back to actually find Jim leaned back against the boulder with his eyes closed instead of trying to climb to his feet and injuring himself some more. His breathing’s even if shallow. Either he’s hurt worse than they both thought or he’s listening to Stark better than he listens to Hikaru and that kinda burns. He’ll deal with that later. Right now he’ll take Jim not trying to get himself killed some more.

Hikaru leans close to check Jim’s pulse just for good measure. Sometimes death looks like survival. Jim’s blue eyes open and lock with his. “Still my favorite.”

He laughs helplessly. Fucking Jim Kirk. From there it descends into chaos.

The next time Hikaru has a moment to breath he’s in the medbay with McCoy grumbling up a storm from nearby. He’s been looked over and patched up. He’s fine aside from a few scrapes that won’t even be there in the morning. He glances up and spots Stark in the next bed over, wincing as he pushes himself upright. The guy had gotten himself thrown into a crystal stone set of shelves. Now that would linger.

They lock gazes and Hikaru gives a nod of gratitude. The guy’s alright underneath it all. They both look over when they hear “Bones! Hey, stop it! I’m FINE!”

“No, you are not, Jim. And if you don’t stop moving, help me God, I’m going to hypo you unconscious!”

Hikaru can’t stop the laughter as he slides from the bed and walks to stand next to Jim’s bed. On the side away from McCoy. He has some sense of self-preservation after all. He arches an eyebrow and gets puppy dog eyes in return. “Hey, Sulu. C’mon, tell Bones I’m fine.”

“Not a chance in hell, you hellion. I’m not going to believe a word he says. He’s just as a bad as you!” McCoy punctuates that with a vicious jab of a hypo, which has Jim slapping a hand to his neck with a vehement ow.

Stark, _Tony_ , slings an arm over his shoulders and says, “Mr. Sulu, you look deceptively innocent if what Dr. McCoy says is true.”

Now Jim’s the one laughing helplessly and Hikaru directs a scowl his way. “It’s all because I have to keep up with him.”

~*~*~*~

Tony drapes an arm over Jim’s shoulders and something in Hikaru should spike with concern. Instead a spiral of lazy curiosity rolls through him and he makes his way toward their table in the mess, sneaking behind the privacy wall next to them.

“So you jumped off a mining platform to save his life, did ya?” Tony says around the stylus he’s rolling around in his mouth. It’s long been public knowledge so Hikaru’s confused why Tony would be asking. He’s intent, focused on Jim, in the same way he focuses on all the equipment he hauled aboard six months ago.

Jim shrugs like it’s nothing and in his mind it might be. Hikaru still doesn’t understand the impulse in Jim Kirk that makes him do shit like that. That makes him try and save the life of a guy he’s barely known five minutes. It doesn’t matter if he hates their guts on a normal day or if he’s known them for years. He’d do it all the same.

Tony leans back, sliding his hand down Jim’s arm as he sat back in his chair. The guy deserved to have his first name used after they’d saved Jim’s life together. It wasn’t the last time either. Jim sometimes needed a lot of saving and right now Jim isn’t looking at Tony. Typical. 

“Not every kind of captain would do that.” That earns Tony a glare.

“So what?”

Hikaru shivers at the cold tone and he knows Jim’s eyes are the brightest flare of blue and just as cold as a black hole.

“Nothing, nothing at all.” He tilts his head up slightly to see Tony’s hands raised in surrender. He pauses and pulls the stylus out of his mouth to tap it against his wrist. “Oh, Sulu, you can come out from hiding.”

Damnit. He stands up sheepishly and peers over the partition at the both of them. He waves awkwardly. “Uh, hi?”

“We were just talking about you, actually,” Tony grins at him while Jim tilts his head.

“Hear anything interesting, Sulu?” 

“Nope, nothing at all, sir.”

“Good, why don’t you come sit down with us and you can tell Lt. Stark here your version of events.”

~*~*~*~

It’s early and neither of them can sleep. They’ve made their way to one of the smaller rec rooms that’s covered in floor mats. When either of them get like this, it’s either fight or fuck. Today it’s fight. They’ve been swapping blows for the last half hour, stripped down to just skin and perspiration. Hikaru shakes sweat out of his eyes and watches Jim circle him with a dark predatory edge to his movements. He’d been chased awake by the what-if scenarios behind the latest mission. No lives lost this time around, thankfully, but that doesn’t stop Jim from dreaming them.

Jim fights dirty, a combination of old school hard knocks and the advanced training they’d drilled into him at the Academy. Hikaru’s had a lifetime of family history and Academy brat advanced training. They’re about even with Jim sporting the beginnings of a split lip and he’s going to have a nice black eye. There’s a dermal regenerator ferreted away in their quarters to take care of that when they’re done. No point in having gossip about the alpha crew beating each other up for fun. It’d be bad for morale.

He’s dancing away from Jim’s vicious uppercut followed by a roundhouse kick when he hears the door slide open. He looks away in surprise, registering the curious eyes of Tony, before Jim sucker punches him in the stomach and he gasps in pained surprise. He wobbles and staggers a few steps back, waiting for the moment when his lungs decide it’s time to start working again.

The blue haze of frustrated impotence that Jim’s been wearing since they rolled out of bed breaks into worried concern as he bends to catch Hikaru’s eyes with arms wrapping around his shoulders. “You okay?”

He gives a short nod then jerks his head in Tony’s direction. They’re both slightly winded and he leans into Jim as they both look at Tony. “Lieutenant?”

No one should be up right now. Nobody that isn’t working a shift anyway and they wouldn’t have a reason to look for them here anyway. “You have a tracker on us or something?” Hikaru cracks through a wheeze. It’s not the first time Tony’s showed up somewhere he and Jim have snuck off to to have a moment to themselves. It’s getting to be more than coincidence.

Tony saunters close and runs a critical eye over them. “Oh, don’t mind me. I was just curious about the show. I’d heard some rumors about you two in action.” He shrugs. “I figured I’d try and see it when we’re not actively being shot at.”

Jim gestures to the bench wordlessly then steps back from Hikaru after a moment to grab a drink of water from the bottles sitting on the ground. Hikaru watches him then looks at Tony. “Up a bit early for you.”

Tony’s tracking Jim then he looks at Hikaru. “Early? Maybe I never went to bed.” He follows up with that characteristic smirk. Hikaru’s beginning to think it’s exactly like Jim’s smart ass attitude. Armor and deflective at the same time.

But this time isn’t about Tony. It’s about him and Jim and he goes over to grab a swig too. He bumps Jim’s shoulder with his own. Jim’s smile is slight but it’s there when it wouldn’t have been when they started. They move back onto the mats and before too long all that fills the air is the smack of feet briefly touching the floor along with the rapid movement of two bodies.

Hikaru ends up with his back on the floor, trapped before he can roll to his feet, and Jim hovers over him. The impish glint in his eyes lets him know this is about to be over. He grins at him before he dips his head and kisses Hikaru like they’re behind closed doors. A hand sweeping along his jaw before a thumb trails along his cheek and he’s sighing into the kiss. Fuck frat regs, fuck everything else. When he’s here with Jim like this, he remembers the excitement of space and exploration. Every shitty thing that they deal with on a near constant basis falls to background chatter.

Jim drops down onto him and he wraps an arm around him. Hikaru cards his hand through his hair and they both need sonic showers when they get back to their quarters but it’s good to feel the burn of exertion, the air coming in and out of his lungs, and nothing but Jim right here in the moment. He rolls off Hikaru and stares up at the ceiling with closed eyes.

The moment ends when the soft pad of footsteps comes closer. Hikaru cracks an eye to see Tony standing over them. He arches an eyebrow. Tony doesn’t speak just offers a hand for him to get up. Once he’s up, Jim’s not far behind. They’re both curious what Tony wants or expects from them.

He’s joined them for meals, ended up on the bridge in the middle of crises, saved their asses several times, and found out more about them than they ever intentionally meant to reveal. Jim slots into the spot beside Hikaru, shoulder to shoulder, and with a clear question on his face.

Tony cuts to the chase first and surprises them like he always does. He says with a quiet voice, “Invite me back for drinks.”

They do.

They end up talking, _really_ talking, instead of in interrupted snatches here and there and all over the ship. He and Jim switch out for the sonic shower and they’re both relaxed and warm as the time stretches out behind them. The conversation flows easy, skirting the dangerous edges for the most part. They’ve crossed a line Hikaru almost didn’t realize was there until it was gone.

It’s ship’s mid-afternoon by the time the words dry up. Jim’s sprawled on the bed, limbs everywhere and a tantalizing glimpse of skin from where his uniform undershirt’s pulled up. Hikaru’s sitting on the opposite end of the bed, legs crossed under him, and Tony’s straddling a chair a few feet away.

It’s Tony that gets up first but it’s Hikaru that walks him to the door. It’s Tony that pauses and doesn’t have anything glib for once to say. He opens his mouth and words fail him. Hikaru rolls his eyes and pulls Tony close to kiss him with a soft press of lips. He pulls back to enjoy the dazed expression on Tony’s face. He then leads him back to the bedroom and to Jim who he tells to kiss Tony goodbye.

He watches Jim lean up to kiss Tony in a similarly chaste way. The sight makes his stomach twist in anticipation. But that’s for later, when things aren’t so new. He walks Tony out again but this time when the door slides open Tony says, “So who’s the captain in bed?”

Hikaru starts laughing uncontrollably. The smirk on Tony’s face tells him all he needs to know. Tony gives a two fingered wave of a salute then saunters down the hall, off to his own quarters.

They’ll see more of Tony. He’s pretty certain of that. It’s only the beginning of something pretty interesting.


End file.
